Pondera Debitum
by Grav
Summary: Nikola Tesla hates calling in a favour.  Remix of Venatus Debitum, Helen/Tesla, takes place after "Sleepers".


**AN**: A sequel of sorts, this might better be described as a mirror or remix of **Venatus Debitum**. It's not necessary to read them both, but it would probably help.

What I was trying to convey was Helen's side of the story, staying true to my original idea that absolutely everything she does from the first kiss on is an act. Accordingly, I tried to case Helen's actions more as "she causes" or "she will make (him)". I'm still not sure that it worked, but it was fun to play with her perception vs. his. On the bright side, Nikola and Helen have sex! ;)

**Spoilers**: This is an episode tag for "Sleepers", and includes spoilers up to that point in the show.

**Disclaimer**: You know, for once I don't even WISH it were mine, because it's perfect the way it is.

**Rating**: M

**Pairing/Characters**: Helen/Tesla, for some odd reason, and they're both a bit haunted by John.

**Summary**: Nikola Tesla hates calling in a favour.

* * *

**Pondera Debitum**

Nikola Tesla hates calling in a favour.

This has been a truism of his character for as long as she has known him. He hates it because he cannot bear the thought of appearing like needs something from anyone. The only time he doesn't loathe it is when he's asking for something he knows is beyond the capabilities or wishes of the person who owes him. He's not malicious, but he is an arrogant bastard, and never turns down the opportunity to gloat.

He certainly seems reluctant to ask anything of her. Particularly in, or perhaps because of, his newly weakened state. It's ludicrous, because she's seen him far worse, but he shows no desire to be indebted to her any further than he might already perceive he is.

What makes it especially trying for her is that she's never been above coming to _him_. During the long years since the horrific moment when she saw Mary Kelly's name splayed across the morning paper and his entirely premature funeral in the mid twentieth century, she has taken advantage of his feelings for her on more than one occasion, and never apologized for doing so.

But she's always been the one to ask, the one who takes the lead. There's never been anything remotely Victorian to that aspect of their somewhat twisted relationship, certainly not since The Ripper. She has no idea what he wants from her right now, and less idea what he needs. All she knows is that when he asks, he'll expect her to rebuff him, as she has every time he makes a move in the game they've been playing since before he stuck the needle in her arm.

It would be easier if he would just ask for sex, no innuendo or clever banter to cover his meaning. If he could just find a way to tell her what she needs to know to get him through this, because getting him through this has been her self-appointed task since the first time the blood overtook him, and she realized what had been unleashed in him by her eagerness to experiment.

He finally wanders her in her office, long after the children have gone to bed and the diurnal abnormals have settled in for the night. He hasn't spent a lot of time in the Sanctuary, but now that he's harmless, well, as harmless as someone of his intelligence and history can be, she has given him free run of the place. Of _her_place. She wonders if it seems all too stale a replacement for what he's lost. She pours the wine, white because she can't bear the thought of a red right how, and watches as he loosens under its influence for the first time in decades.

When the tray slides into his hand, she laughs because she is relieved that he still has _something_. On the inside, where he can't see, she worries that it will not be enough, that mere magnetism cannot fill in for the rapidly coursing power of pure electricity. But he says he can work with it, and until she looks at his face, she believes he is telling the truth.

His fingers curl around the delicate stem of his wine cup, and his smile spreads too wide across a face that no longer stretches to accommodate a monster. She recognizes the pain of losing something that was bad, not for him, but for those _around_ him, and she can see it because she's been living with her own such pain since Mary Kelly was gutted in her flat in Whitechapel all that time ago.

And just like that, Nikola has asked his favour. No words to obfuscate meaning or blur intent, just request and concession, as simply as if they've done this before. And they have done, after a fashion, but the inverse where it was her pain that grew too solitary to bear. She would come to him, and he would do her the courtesy of pretending that he didn't know she was thinking of someone else. Her act will be different, she realizes, but she will make him to believe, if only for the moment he needs, that she is a version of Helen Magnus who does not exist; one who loves him back.

He leans in to kiss her, setting down the cup as he does so and shaking off the tray as it tries to follow him across the table like a puppy, and she finally feels that she knows where she stands. His attention to her mouth is absolute, and his hand cradles her skull as delicately as it had cradled the wine glass, until his fingers begin to wind her hair. She tries to press into his kiss and lean back against his hand at the same time, and he shifts closer, taking that modicum of space from her so that she is caught. She smiles, and he takes advantage of the space between her lips to slide his tongue across her teeth. When she sighs, pressing against him, her mouth falls open enough to admit him, and she revels in the feel of his mouth on hers.

She's felt his mouth on her before, of course. On her wrist, sucking desperately when he was freshly turned and victim to all manner of unsettling hunger, on her knuckles through a white kid glove after a turn about the dance floor when kissing a lady's hand was still fashionable, even the greater expanse of her skin, during the trysts she'd instigated. But this time she has no cause to fear being sliced with razored nails, no reason not to offer him the pulse point on her neck. For the first time with her, he can lose control. And she is beginning to sense that he intends to, utterly.

Despite her rapidly heating thoughts, the kiss is almost lazy. It lingers while they break apart to breathe, though never far enough to catch more than the briefest wisp of air before being pulled back under. Her fingers find purchase in his vest, and she slowly begins to divulge him of it. He pulls back when he realizes what she's doing, breaking the kiss at last.

They sit staring at each other and gasping, him in a half unbuttoned vest and she with hair she's sure is now more than stylishly tousled. He kisses her again, once and quickly, and she has no idea why he's stalling for time, unless it's to decide between here on the sofa, desperately crammed into too small a space, or bent over her desk, with her skirt rucked up about her hips. She starts to ask, but then something crystallizes in his eyes, and she understands.

Her eyes widen and then flicker to the door on reflex. For the millionth time in her life, she wishes that Tesla were John, because if he were, they'd simply be in her room as soon as thinking it. She blinks, and she can tell he's thinking the same thing. By the time he grabs her hands, she pushed John firmly into the recesses of her mind again.

He stands, and she follows him to the door. Once there, she finds herself pressed up against the frame, mouth captured by his once more in a kiss far less casual than the first two. This one burns straight through her, and when it seems like he's changed his mind about her bed, she very nearly lets him have his way with her, half standing in the corridor, but she does not.

She slips into the hall, not relinquishing his hands, and pulls him along. He's not stronger than she is anymore, and she finds that she is enjoying his new weaknesses, through she can only assume that he is not. He was always prey to weakness, perceived or manifest, and she has used that to her own ends over the years. Tonight, though, she will not allow it, and he follows her as he has always done.

Her room is on the this floor, thank goodness, and she tries her best not to look at him as he follows her through the door because she is a bit afraid of what she might see. Instead, she kisses him again, reaching for buttons before the door swings shut behind him, and she barely hears the latch click over the sound of her own suddenly overflowing desire.

She throws his vest and cravat carelessly to the floor as he slowly maneuvers them towards her bed. He fumbles with the buttons of her blouse, and for the life of her she can't tell if he's being this reticent because he has to or because this is the way he wants it. She finishes her task first, and when her fingers brush across his chest, she finds it warm to the touch. His eyes fly open and he jerks back. Vampires are not, despite what modern media seems to think, cold blooded, but they are typically cooler than humans, and he was clearly not prepared for the shock of her skin against his.

She takes in his reaction with a wicked gleam in her eyes, and trails her tongue across her lips before biting down ever so gently on the bottom one. Thus provoked, he surges forward with renewed purpose, and makes fast work of her blouse and bra before she stumbles backwards against the bed and allows herself to fall. She welcomes his weight as he stretches out on top of her, and when the trailing line of his unbuttoned shirt teases against her skin, she cannot stop the hiss that escapes her.

His smirk is familiar, but her revenge comes quickly enough. Her skirt must be unzipped from the back, and to reach the fastener she must press her hips up against his. She does not need to wiggle to remove it, but she does anyway, and he groans in exquisite frustration before pulling down as soon as the fabric has the give to allow it. He crouches at her feet and leans up to kiss her just above the knee as his hands trace the laces on her right boot, before pulling to loosen them. His mouth moves higher against her thigh, and she thinks that while she does at time miss the play of laces and a multitude of layers, there is something to be said for modernity and bare legs.

Her hands feel empty as he moves to the left boot, so she reaches for him, and tangles her fingers in his hair. He is taking too long, and she's surprised that she feels that way, but cannot help encouraging him. He allows himself to be pulled upwards, and soon enough she is captured by his mouth once more.

His hands find their way into her hair, laying it out in strands across the pillow with infinite care and deliberation sufficient to drive her mad. Though she can't see it, she knows immediately when he curls his fingers around the handle of the sig sauer that she cannot sleep without, no matter how unpredictable it makes her pillow. He loses no time in tipping it off the side of the bed. She laughs at the clunking sound it makes when it hits the floor, and wonders if he knows that there are four others within arm's reach of where they lie.

His hands are on either side of her shoulders bracing his weight, so it falls to her to take care of his belt and trousers. She's always been efficient, so she manages not only to completely undress him, once he kicks off his shoes and socks, but also to get out of her last remaining garment as well so that when he settles between her thighs there is nothing but skin.

He does not bite her, even though she really _really_ wants him to, particularly when he runs his tongue over the crescent shaped scar on the inside of her right shoulder, close to her collar bone, the scar she got that night in Dubrovnik during the Great Depression. Not even when she moans, remembering the feel of his once too sharp teeth. He has always bitten her before, when it was her game they were playing, and then she knows that this is why he is resisting now. His game has different rules, and he seems determined to keep them separate so that he will remember. So that _she_ will remember.

Instead, his mouth closes gently around her nipple, and his weight shifts as he frees a hand to cover her other breast. She gasps as the sensation and at the added pressure of his hips bearing down on hers. His arousal presses into her thigh, and she scrapes her nails down his back in an effort to pull him closer. She's been anticipating this since that first kiss, which seems like aeons ago, and only her determination that this not be about her prevents her for forcing more direct action.

His mouth leaves her breast and she moans, but her protest is swallowed as he kisses her again. He slides his hand with infuriating slowness down across her stomach to the warmth at her core. She's wet already, which should not surprise her, and his fingers begin what can only be called an unrepentant slow tease, eliciting sharp jerks from her hips as he pushes her closer to the edge. The changing angle of his hand as he positions his thumb to continue drawing its agonizing circles around her clit is the only warning she gets before two fingers enter her.

He withdraws from the kiss so that he can watch her face, and she desperately tries to keep her eyes open before it becomes too much and she gives in, throwing her head back into the pillows. She moans his name as she comes, and it's very, very close to not being an act at all. When she can see his face again clearly through the fading haze of desire, his gaze is more focused than she's ever seen him before, and she knows that she has played her part to perfection.

Before she's even close to breathing normally again, he pulls back his hand and sinks into her. He fills her completely, and she knows he'll realize that it's been a while, so she cants her hips to meet each stroke as he pushes into her. Then, there is nothing in the world but him, and she abandons all pretence for his sake with the knowledge that she will still be there when the dust settles.

* * *

She wakes as she fell asleep, curled uncharacteristically in the crook of his arm, face pressed against his chest and with both his arms around her. She can hear him breathing, and knows that he's awake. She's surprised he stayed. Before, he had always left her, presumably to hold on to whatever measure of his dignity and distance remained.

His hearing isn't what it once was, and it takes him a moment to notice that while her breathing has shifted, she has not. She lets him hold her, his hands in her hair, his chest rising and falling beneath her own, and his knee far to close to being pressed between her legs once more.

It isn't over yet, his turn at the game. Her hand glides across his stomach to tangle with his, fingers running over nails that will no longer sprout into razor sharp claws, no matter what he wishes. It isn't over yet, and suddenly she knows what he has needed since the beginning.

"I'm sorry, Nikola," she sighs, and he all but flinches away from the cool air across his chest. She tightens her arm around him, preparing for the storm, as the weight of everything that's happened since yesterday comes crashing down on his all too fragile human form.

For the first time in over a century, Nikola cries.

* * *

**finis**

**AN**: For those of you who are still here, the title means "The Reflection of Debtors", because "mirror" is an ugly word in Latin. This one I can only blame on my own self.

I'm still not sure how well the exercise in active verbing went...but oparu assures me it's okay.

Gravity_Not_Included, January 14th, 2011**  
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